PIKSEL11 workshop series

Free and Open Creative Technology workshops

In connection with the PIKSEL11 festival we are offering in total of 11 hardware
and software workshops. All the workshops are free to attend, but for some of
the hardware workshops there is a cost for materials.

To sign up or get more information, please contact us on piksel11 [AT] piksel.no or register directly at: http://piksel.no/ocs/index.php/piksel/piksel11/schedConf/registration

ELECTROMAGNETIC CITYSCAPE – Roger 10-4

ELECTROMAGNETIC CITYSCAPE is a workshop in which participants build a wearable device (from re-purposed objects) that makes electromagnetic fields audible and go into the city to explore these invisible fields.
Participants are expected to bring an old electronic object (preferably with coils in it) to dismantle. The coils are re-purposed as pick up microphones (mics that ‘listen to’ electromagnetic frequencies). Participants then build an amplifier (soldering components to a PCB). After that the circuit is built into a wearable device (re-using the old components of the dismantled object). The workshop ends with a walk through the city and shopping areas discovering the electromagnetic fields in the environment.ELECTROMAGNETIC CITYSCAPE is about understanding how things work, breaking things open, working with the physical leftovers of planned obsolescence, and re-incarnating old components. It is also about exploring the hidden world of omnipresent electromagnetic waves. 

Material cost: NOK 100

 

Visual Live Coding with Texture – Alex McLean

This workshop will explore the use of Texture, a visual programming language designed for the live coding of pattern. Texture recognises the importance of space (e.g. prosody, handwriting, layout) in language by making arrangment in 2D Euclidean space part of the primary syntax of the language. All the user can do is move the cursor and type in text, but they can move the words around freely in two dimensions, with connections made between words to compose functions, in order to build up rhythmic structure.
This workshop follows on from last year’s SchemeBricks workshop, during which Texture was demonstrated, but was not yet ready for the hands-on portion of the workshop. Texture has been used in several workshops since, using tight network sync to allow participants to jam together during the final hour of the workshop, experiencing the software in group music making.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KtFlGEVFGE

 

Schmutz||Disrupter ∆nalog tools – MP19

Disruptor
Analog event disrupter based on a timeline
Delayer from 30ms to 600ms
Infinite sustained Feedback
2 Input data/audio – 4 outputs disrupted out / feedded out / data
Accept instrument/line/data input.
Time disrupted modulation control though 5 potentiometer Timer-Mod_amount-timer_mod- delayer level – delay feedback
2 Timed modes  stable/unstable
Feedback freq. 40 Hz to ~5/6 KHz
Battery or plug powered 9 – 12v
Easy to bend-expand-replicate
Each input signal its processed and repeated each time more disrupted/clean, through an analog low pass filter of 30db.Schmutz
Analog schmutz octaver, cold metal sound distorsion.
Blend control to calibrate the distorsion level on outputTexture control to select the upper octaves added
Battery or plug powered 9 – 12v
Easy to bend-expand-replicate
His carácter comes from the Darlington transistors ladder with a gain of 70000 and the 5 diode rectifier, with the potentiometers to the máximum the sound becomes similar to a ring modulator adding a cold metalic sound to the source.
Great behaviour with deep bass sounds and percussive structures.
http://mp19.net 

Material cost: NOK 100
Kits are available for sale at the workshop –
Disruptor NOK 500 – Schmutz NOK 350

 

 

 

the 120days of *buntu – Gordan Savicic, Danja Vasiliev

The operating system of a modern computer represents an intimate interface for the user. Default systems are imposing so many rules and dogmas
onto the user which make those systems very similar to our control-driven social environment. We envision the computer desktop and operating systems as a contemporary replacement for urban public space.
The 120days of *buntu is a mash-up of 120 different Ubuntu operating systems (OS). Each OS is a self-contained Live CD/USB stick; any PC/Mac can be instantly booted from it. ‘The 120 days of *buntu’ project treats Operating Systems (Ubuntu Linux distributions) as public space, prone to modification by its habitants/users. The OS modification happens on all levels: from looks-and-feel of User Interface (GUI), interaction model, visual and audio feedback and down to modified system tools and hacked kernel. The project is based on the source code of the most popular Linux/GNU distribution – Ubuntu, which is reconfigured and remixed, creating a collection of 120 essentially dadaistic, yet humoristic, and at the same time useless but bootable Linux-like distributions. The systems we are creating are reflections of life situations and desktop-user experiences within the genre of software art. The 120days of *buntu incorporates the production and distribution of a user-determined OS. Following the experimental nature of this project, we deployed an alternative distribution model for our modified software. Besides the Internet, our Live CDs were spread through a so-called Street-Sneaker-Net, inspired by the illegal CD/DVD sellers in the streets of São Paulo, Brazil.’The 120 days of *buntu’ project exists in three different forms:
– ‘OS modification workshop’ where participants learn how to modify their Desktop environments
– ‘120buntu.com’ online community offering complete repository of our software
– ‘Exhibition setup’; comprised of all created operating system running as LIVE sessions.www.120buntu.com

 

Sudamerica Experimental Workshop – Cristiano Rosa, Daniel Llermaly

Construction of devices developed in research laboratories of Sudamerica Experimental.
Applications for audio:
– Atari Punk Console
– Pulse and Control Voltage Sequencer
– Llermaly – Subaquatic Bass Machine
– Panetone – Qadrox – Square Wave Generator
– Panetone – Little Bass – Sinewave Generator
– Eric Archer – Mini Space RockersApplications for video:
– Saturated and Distortion TV signal
– Mini Dirty Mixer
– Atari Punk Video
– Panetone – Zen TV 

Material cost: NOK 100

 

SonicDrift – the MemeLab

SonicDrift is an Android smartphone application that detects GPS and allow users to record and playback sounds from their environment.
We would like to facilitate a participatory creation workshop that would allow us to work with members of the public and create an audio walk based on generated ideas. Overall, we would be working with the group to identify the possibilities of placing sonic layers in shared space.While we would like to work with the group to identify the final content and scope of the walk, we plan to put an emphasis on the read/write capabilities of the app, the geopolitical structures inherent to GPS technology, and the potentials of hacking urban space and creating participatory sound ecologies.In addittion, a Processing for Android workshop, giving an overview and guided practice for developing creative media applications using the Processing environment and Android OS.

 

din is noise – S Jagannathan

In this workshop S Jagannathan invites people to learn how to use din to design their own sounds and improvise their music. I also:
* Help people install din on their favourite GNU/Linux distribution either using pre-built packages or by compiling from source code.* Teach people how to create & edit Bezier curves in din to change the timbre of their instrument, change its volume, perform frequency and ampltitude modulation, make beats, edit delay feedback & volume curves and compress loudness.* Teach people how to create and manipulate masses of drones (voices) on any pitch on the audio range (ie 20Hz to 20KHz).* Teach people how to use the IRC bot to securely control a remote din.* Teach people to use the Tcl language to extend din with scripts that can accept MIDI, IRC & OSC input even during a live performance.Depending on festival rules & regulations, live-usb disks that quickly boot into GNU/Linux and run din on any suitable PC can be made available for sale.http://dinisnoise.org

 

C/Overt operations with CCTV sniffing – Adnan Hadzi

Our main tool for this workshop will be easily to obtained, simple to use and perfectly legal video receivers that can intercept the data collected by small CCTV video cameras often placed covertly in shops, offices and other public/private spaces. But we will also use ordinary media-gathering devices, our own eyes and ears and our social skills to identify and record evidence of covert operations in our midst, whether this is capturing gossip and rumour about the Piksel festival or observing city planners’ attempts to ‘design out’ specific social behaviours.
The workshop will introduce participants to Surveillance and CCTV filmmaking where material and images from the Deptford.TV archive will be edited to submissions from the Deptford.TV database. Footage taken from Deptford.TV was filmed during a previous TV hacking workshop where participants equipped with CCTV surveillance signal receivers were lead through the city by incoming surveillance camera signals. CCTV video signal receivers cached surveillance camera signals into public and private spaces and were made visible: surveillance became sousveillance. By making images visible which normally remain hidden, we gain access to the “surveillance from above” enabling us to use these images to create personal narratives of the city. The workshop will look at constructing a possible narrative.Deptford.TV is a research project on collaborative film – initiated by Adnan Hadzi in collaboration with the Deckspace media lab, Bitnik media collective, Boundless project, Liquid Culture initiative, and Goldsmiths College. The Pure:Dyne memorysticks are created by GOTO10. GOTO10 is a collective of international artists and programmers, dedicated to Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) and digital arts. GOTO10 aims to support and grow digital art projects and tools for artistic creation, located on the blurry line between software programming and art.http://goto10.orghttp://edit.deptford.tv

 

Using the Milkymist One video synthesizer – Sébastien Bourdeauducq

The Milkymist One is an open hardware live video synthesizer device – no computer needed! Connect a camera and a videoprojector, press the power button, and seconds later, everything you film becomes live psychedelic effects of color and light. Point the camera at a dancer on stage, at people attending your party, at toys, use UV-glow paint… there are no limits to creativity!
Artists will appreciate the possibility to design new visual effects using the Flickernoise Patching (FNP) language, which allows you to create unique and personal shows without requiring extensive experience with computer programming.Join us in this workshop to learn how to use the Milkymist One and design new effects with the FNP language!Bring your own Milkymist One to the workshop, and connect it to the provided screens. There will be Milkymist One units for sale at the workshop, including all accessories listed on http://www.milkymist.org/buy.html. Optionally, you are also welcome to bring your MIDI or DMX equipment, Arduinos, etc. and try them with the Milkymist One.http://www.milkymist.org

 

OHANDA working session – Juergen Neumann, Tuomo Tammenpää
OHANDA, Open Source Hardware and Design Alliance, is an initiative to foster sustainable sharing of open hardware and design. Join us for this working session to discuss the tactics for raising awareness of open source hardware among larger audience and develop methods for sustainable sharing of the open source hardware designs & documentations.http://www.ohanda.org

 

UKI game level one [infect the city] workshop – Jara Rocha, Massimo Avvisati

Every morning (17th, 18th, 19th and 20th of November), from 11h to 12h, there is a UKI game level 1 gathering/workshop with the following aims:
1) map out the city – define the routes for workshop participants to go out with mobilephone and QR code stickers to infect the city2) preview and review the viral game one programming codes with workshop participants

3) work with workshop participants’ comments to improve and work on more codes everyday for next day presentation.